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multiple eggs

i did a split a few weeks back and today found my new queen. I also found multiple eggs in what appears to be drone cone cells. My question is do I have a laying worker or is my queen not mated correctly? there is lots of room in the nuc for more eggs to be laid. how long does it take the new queen to settle in and start going? I have 5 frames fully drawn but the eggs were confined to one small area on one frame and like i said it appears to be drone comb I would call it burr comb really. its in the middle of new foundation and looks like someone just cut a piece and stuck it on there. If its a laying worker why are the other frames not holding eggs? some cells have single eggs and they appear to be in the middle but some have maybe 5 eggs in them. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: multiple eggs

I'm far from an expert, just going into my second year, but multiple eggs in one cell from what I have read is bad news. I have read good queens lay eggs with precision. But myself, I have no experience with laying workers.

Re: multiple eggs

I'm just guessing but perhaps the laying worker will settle down here soon when the queen lays some more and things get situated more. If the new queen is laying a nice bunch of single eggs and things seem normal I think the laying workers is supposed to stop. They may have started laying if the colony was queenless for too long. I have only had laying workers if the queen was not in place. If the queen is in and laying I think they are supposed to stop. Are the attendants gathering around her like they normally do? If so I would take that as a good sign. Hopefully some other folks that have had a similar situation occur will respond as well. Is there enough emerging brood in the split? If it is not stocked up and you can afford to add another frame of brood that might be beneficial as well. Good Question, Good Luck!!!

Re: multiple eggs

Jeff it sounds like you have a laying worker. Are some of the multiple eggs in the cells stuck on the side of the cell? That usually results from a short body that can't get eggs to the bottom. If you have a properly mated queen, you shouldn't have a laying worker. The pheromones are supposed to suppress the workers. The eggs laid in drone comb is not neccessarily a bad thing if the nuc is strong. If the brood in worker cells all are domed up it will mean your new queen is definately shooting blanks.

Re: multiple eggs

They are all laid on one frame ( outer edge of the box) but nothing in the brood area ( center of the hive) how long before the queen starts laying right? why did she start with drone? is she not mated? The queen was actually located on another frame moving around with all the other bees I have no more brood emerging they have all hatched waiting on the queen to be born. do I need to add more so they can take care of the eggs or will the workers take care of that? they seem to be active coming and going with polen and even have a little honey stored up

Re: multiple eggs

I'm assuming you let the bees make a queen for you........Your split, done at least 28 days ago (?) - 28 days is the minimum time from egg to a 'new queen' laying-, makes me wonder if you have/had enough drones flying to mate with your virgin queen. No drones flying = drone laying queen. Hope I'm wrong here. I have drone brood but have only seen a couple drones this week, didn't see any last week. I live in Hood county, just East of you in Erath County.

LeeB
I try to learn from my mistakes, and from yours when you give me a heads up :)

Re: multiple eggs

A new queen often lays two or three eggs in a cell. I would look more for where they are and, since you saw the queen, you know they are not queenless. Even a drone laying queen, when she is laying well, doesn't lay multiple eggs unless she runs out of room to lay.

Re: multiple eggs

I have a similar problem.

On Monday, I checked a hive that swarmed or superceded - not sure - for eggs, figuring it would be the right time. I didn't see any, so I added a frame of open brood and eggs from a strong hive (no bees attached to it).

Today, Wednesday, I looked at the frame of brood I added and I see multiple eggs as well - sometimes up to three - and even on top of pollen stores. This frame also has a couple active queen cells on it - formerly used queen cups I'm guessing.

I looked at an adjacent frame and saw a nice egglaying pattern - single eggs - that I didn't see two days earlier. There's a lot of nectar in this hive since there wasn't any egglaying done for some time while the queen was developing. I din't see the queen, and I didn't want to interrupt the hive any longer than I had to looking for her.

So... is the new queen laying eggs on the introduced brood frame, hoping the foreign eggs are removed? Should I remove this frame and/or destroy the queen cells?

I think I jumped the gun by adding a brood frame. I guess I could also remove this frame and start a split/NUC when or if (assuming QCs are not destroyed) the QCs are capped.

Anyone else see this?

Thanks in advance - I'm a new beekeeper (from the US) living in Greece.

Re: multiple eggs

If you have a good queen in the colony and you have some queen cells because of your intervention, I'd pull them and put them in a mating nuc (a frame of brood and a frame of honey and a shake of bees) and let them get mated.

Re: multiple eggs

While it is true that there can be a bit of a learning curve for a new queen as she begins egg laying I would look at multiple eggs in cells from a well mated queen as being the exception and not the rule. The scenario that the op lays out of multiple eggs in drone cells is almost certainly evidence of a laying worker. One of the keys to look for more than an occassional multiple egg is egg placement is if the eggs are well centered in the bottom of the cells.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: multiple eggs

Thanks Michael and Jim for the responses.

I checked the frame donor hive - luckily, no queen cells. Did some opening of the brood nest as the hive has filled up both deeps and is working on 3 frames on the third deep - nectar/honey. Here in Kefalonia, the season begins early. Actually, I'm in a warmish valley and from September to June there is plenty of pollen being brought in all winter long. There's no break in brood rearing even though the hives don't grow either. Heck, I raised two queens from a split last fall and they started laying late November/early December. I underestimated their strength and they filled up their single deeps and swarmed on me in March. I should have pyramided - but the night temps were still in the low 50s, upper 40s.

August is our hell month - it's a hot and a sunburnt dry landscap with plenty of wasps and hornets that also gather at the nearby vineyards.

That said, I have already had 3 hives swarm out of six in the past three weeks. It's tough being in this kind of environment/climate when most of the literature written on bees is from places with real winters. Trial by error is my method.

Nonetheless, I will be inspecting this hive again in a couple days and will report back. I'm optimistic because the adjacent frame had well centered eggs and a decent pattern at that. I'm thinking the queen laid on top of the foreign eggs for some reason. The hive was queenless for just about a month only.

I started late Spring last year, hopefully this year I'll be harvesting a decent amount of thyme honey.

Re: multiple eggs

I checked my hive with multiple eggs - still no luck. The frame I introduced on Monday has several capped queen cells, so I did what M. Bush suggested and started a new nuc. I may even cut some q cells out for more nucs as they seem like a decent size.

I checked after leaving the hive alone for some time, hoping that it was just an over eager queen.

No luck. All drone brood (dome caps) in worker cells. You were right Michael. The queen cells should be hatching soon, and two more weeks after that... I have to re-introduce them since I removed that frame. Luckily, I have quite a few other queen cells from other swarms on hand as well.